Looking for the spirit of Rick's Cafe

Seven decades after the premiere of the film classic “Casablanca,” the Moroccan port city remains firmly associated in many people's minds with the movie, even though Rick's Cafe Americain, where much of the story took place, was a pure creation of Hollywood.

“Casablanca,” a story of love and intrigue during World War II, premiered Nov. 26, 1942. Today, the city is a vibrant, noisy metropolis of 4 million people and Morocco's commercial capital, nothing like the wartime colonial outpost depicted in the iconic movie, which starred Humphrey Bogart as Rick. But a trip through the city's swanky lounges and dive bars can still evoke the spirit of the cafe from the movie. There's even a real-life Rick's Cafe here, founded by an American expat.

In the film, Rick's Cafe Americain, an expansive space spanned by low arches, had it all: a casino, singers, full brass band and round tables where guests hunched conspiratorially, drinking and talking about resisting the Nazis or getting exit visas to flee to America.

Outside the cafe's paneled doors, the movie depicted Hollywood's “Middle East” with generic dusty streets and markets. Characters talked about “rotting” away in Casablanca, described as being in the middle of a desert. In fact, Casablanca in 1942 was a jewel of the French colonial empire, famous for luscious art deco and neo-classical architecture.

Those buildings still stand, though some are a bit worse for the wear. Casablanca's downtown still looks like a European city in the 1950s with an “oriental” twist. The downtown is centered around the arched colonnades of Mohammed V street, lined by stately art deco wonders. Cars are banned from the street in preparation for a tramway opening this month.

For decades after the war, Casablanca was filled with jazz clubs and cabarets that hosted the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker. But the last jazz club closed in 1984 amid conservatism and a turn away from Western music. Downtown bars and once-tony spots fell into disfavor. At the same time, rural migrants flooded in looking for jobs. Cheap, ugly, unregulated high-rises sprung up as the city mushroomed. The upper classes moved to new developments on the edges of town and along the Atlantic beaches.

Tourists passing through the city looking for Rick's in those years were often disappointed by traffic-choked streets and the glass and concrete tower blocks of a modern city. But in recent years, more nightspots have opened, including, in 2004, Rick's Cafe.

“I was amazed in my four years here that no one ever thought of establishing a Rick's Cafe,” recalled its owner, Kathy Kriger. Her previous career as a diplomat in Casablanca's U.S. consulate gave her the connections she needed to open the restaurant amid Morocco's red tape and bureaucracy. Every time her project stalled, she called in favors from the capital, Rabat, pulling strings just like Rick did in the movie.

“I used him as a mentor when I was doing this project,” Kriger admitted. “I often wondered, what would Rick do?”

Her elegant restaurant, in a 1930s townhouse on the edge of Casablanca's medina, is awash in nostalgia for the classic film. Kriger can be found most nights perched on the end of the long bar, while a piano player – named Issam, not Sam – plays the movie's theme song, “As Time Goes By,” repeatedly through the night to a packed house.

And while the only item on the menu in the movie seemed to be caviar, Kriger offers a full menu of Moroccan and continental cuisine. “I take the movie as a basis but make it more luxurious and better,” Kriger said.

The real-life Rick's is a hit, filled with well-heeled locals and visitors from everywhere, from Atlanta to Japan. Outside a tour bus is usually parked next to the BMWs and Audis of the dinner crowd.

The conspiratorial feel of Rick's Cafe is also evoked in La Cigale (the Cicada), a downtown haunt of intellectuals and journalists. The bar at first glance has the intimidating look of many Casablanca dives, with too many mustaches and cigarettes. But in back, the place widens out to an arched room filled with all ages. A stone-faced waitress known as Nora deftly moves her matronly form through the crowd, popping open beer bottles one-handed as she deposits them on tables, saving the occasional half-smile or smirk for young regulars.

Also downtown is the Cintra, a cramped bar known for cheap beer and live Arabic music, open until the wee hours. Upstairs in the mezzanine, aficionados of the Arabic lute, or oud, gather to hear thoughtful performances, while downstairs it's noisy, raucous and good-natured.

For the most part, however, Casablanca's night life has moved away from downtown. The remaining cabarets are often venues for ear-splitting Egyptian-style belly-dance music and prostitutes who tend to be more aggressive than the lazily swaying dancers in the Blue Parrot, Rick's main night life competition in the movie.

Getting into the fictional Rick's wasn't always easy. A curt shake of the head from Rick was enough to tell the doorman when someone was persona non grata. Similarly, in modern Casablanca, where fancy neighborhoods often lie next to bidonvilles or slums, men in black suits stationed at restaurant doors give would-be patrons the once-over.

The door scene is refreshingly absent at B Rock, a club in the heart of the corniche strip that caters to Casablanca's alternative crowd. It offers a quiet bar area with pool tables as well as a lively downstairs where bands playMohammed Merhari, B Rock's owner, cautions against coming to his club looking for Hollywood's Casablanca.

“We don't do much jazz, we don't have a piano and we don't live in black and white,” he said, with a touch of Rick's gruff humor from the movie. “This place is for young people who live in the 21st century. We live in color.”

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